The Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) provides access to data stored in a number of different types of data sets. One of these types of data sets is the Keyed Sequential Data Set (KSDS). Each data record has an Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC) value associated with the data record. This value is used as a key which is used to locate the data record. The key is part of each data record. Sometimes, these individual data records are placed into a record group. A high key (typically the key of the last data record stored in the record group) of a record group may then be sorted into a master group along with a plurality of other record group high keys. For each master group, an index record is created with index entries which describe the high key included in each record group. The index record is updated for many reasons, and if any of this update processing does not complete successfully, the index record may become unsynchronized with individual data record(s). This may result in data records not having a valid entry in the index record available to a processing program, thereby hindering processing and updating of the key for the data records not indexed.
Therefore, systems and methods which can account for these synchronization anomalies between the index record and individual data records referenced therein would be very beneficial to VSAM-based systems.